NASCAR » racinghttp://www.allleftturns.com
The best NASCAR site on the web: Breaking news, drivers, races, rumors, forums, pictures, and video—with a heavy dose of attitude.Tue, 03 Mar 2015 08:33:07 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.2NASCAR Celebrates Hispanic National Heritage Monthhttp://www.allleftturns.com/nascar-celebrates-hispanic-national-heritage-month/
http://www.allleftturns.com/nascar-celebrates-hispanic-national-heritage-month/#commentsSat, 19 Oct 2013 12:01:10 +0000allleftturnshttp://www.allleftturns.com/?p=683464Posted by: Jack Tomas of www.tuvez.com NASCAR has partnered with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund to raise money to support math and science programs for underprivileged Latino kids. It’s all a part of their increased push into Mexico and other Latino markets. Mexicans have always loved racing, especially Indy and formula one, but NASCAR was but [...]

NASCAR has partnered with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund to raise money to support math and science programs for underprivileged Latino kids. It’s all a part of their increased push into Mexico and other Latino markets. Mexicans have always loved racing, especially Indy and formula one, but NASCAR was but a dream for many years South of the Border. That is until 2004 when NASCAR realized how lily White they were and implemented their “Drive For Diversity Program” to try and help Latino drivers get to the top. It’s like Affirmative Action for driving around a big oval at huge speeds.

Mexico in particular has been responsive. The sport has been gaining traction, (ha!), there for the last 15 years or so and a couple of really nice tracks have been built including the Autodromo Miguel E. Abed in Puebla. German Quiroga is one of NASCAR’s rising Latino stars. By rising I mean you sometimes see him on the track and when he does he usually places. He’s started his first full year driving in the Camping World Truck series. The truth is that 10 years into their “Drive for Diversity” program, NASCAR is still very very White. Quiroga says,

“In my opinion, I think NASCAR hasn’t done enough to bring up a proper Latin or Mexican driver. It’s a huge thing missing from NASCAR, having a recognizable young Mexican driver. They have to treat it as an investment for the future. You can’t expect a young driver to come in and be successful right away. You have to pave the way for them to get there.”

You have to wonder if it’s a conscious decision at the NASCAR organization or if it is just part of a deeper prejudice against Latino drivers? Perhaps NASCAR thinks that its die-hard fans, mostly White suburban dads from Red states, aren’t ready for Latino drivers in the big time? You only have to look at baseball to know that is BS. In the 40′s and 50′s, Latino baseball players could only play in the Minor or Negro leagues. Now the players on most baseball teams have more Spanish last names than not. Sports may be the only place where people don’t care as much about what your heritage anymore but about whether or not you win. Give the NASCAR dads a chance, yo.

Years of speculation about Patrick’s skill, or lack of it, will be on full display in North America’s largest race. Sorry Indianapolis 500.

With Patrick’s announcement comes a surprising amount of winners and losers, plus some people who find themselves stuck in the middle. Here’s a breakdown, Bert Convy style.

Win: FOX

The Daytona 500 is a huge ratings cow for the network. Add Patrick’s appearance/spectacle/nobody really knows what will happen component to this race, and FOX will find millions of additional eyes on their network for an extended amount of time. In a sport that needs new revenue streams, the value of Patrick’s appearance can’t be overstated.

Lose: David ReutimannSo much for riding in the sport’s biggest race. What stinks is Reutimann has a good record on bigger tracks. Could he win? Trevor Bayne won last year in a Wood Brothers car. It would make for a good story.

Draw: Dedicated Sprint Cup fansWill Patrick receive a disproportionate amount of coverage to appease the network? Probably. If Patrick is running 30th the whole day, fans will want to see the race leaders and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Will that set Twitter ablaze? Bank on it.

Win: Tony Stewart

Whopper Man has the potential to become one of racing’s most important figures of all time. Really.

Not only is a team owner the sport’s champion, but he just won the tug of war for racing’s hottest driver. Sorry Brian Vickers.

In this economy, for Stewart to have three relevant teams in less than five years is nothing short of stunning. Just ask Michael Waltrip how hard this can be.

Lose: Dave BlaneyBlaney went from having a spot in the biggest race of the year to having to earn said spot with equipment that is at best not ideal. Dang.

Draw: Greg ZippadelliTalk about a challenge. Zippy essentially replaces a crew chief who orchestrated the biggest Chase in history. I know Zippy isn’t chiefing Stewart’s team, but the names will be connected. In addition to that pressure, Zippy gets to run quality gear with an unproven driver. That didn’t work out so well with Joey Logano. Be careful for what you wish…Win, Lose and Draw: Danica PatrickPatrick gets to race in the Daytona 500. What racing fan wouldn’t want that experience? Even if I finished dead last, I wouldn’t care.

The problem is Patrick will have a giant line upon her and 42 other teams who won’t cut her any slack because it’s her first race. That is legitimately dangerous. Think Kevin Harvick won’t run her off the track if he has a chance to win???

Here’s the draw: we have no clue how Patrick will respond. Patrick had success at Indi when expectations were low. She struggled at Indi when expectations were high. Patrick’s Daytona expectations are both low and high for very different reasons. I guess that’s one reason we will watch a few Sundays from now.

The big story right now is Denny Hamlin's injury. We are seeing a lot of discussion out there wondering whether his 2010 start will be just as good as his 2009 ending. Some of the PR from the Joe Gibbs camp is that this will be no problem.

The big story right now is Denny Hamlin’s injury. We are seeing a lot of discussion out there wondering whether his 2010 start will be just as good as his 2009 ending. Some of the PR from the Joe Gibbs camp is that this will be no problem.

Let’s compare some recent examples of NASCAR injuries.

In 2009, Carl Edwards broke his right foot in September. In the following twelve races after the injury (the last twelve of 2009), he had three Top Tens, and a total of ZERO Top Fives. His average finish was 19th.

But in the twelve races BEFORE the injury, he had five Top Fives, six Top Tens, and finished all twelve of those races on the lead lap in the top 20, for an average finish of 10th.

Clearly his injury made a difference, as those two sets of a dozen races were like two totally different drivers. An injured Carl Edwards is like Casey Mears on a good day. Huge drop.

But you could say Edwards’s injury was much more severe from a driving point of view than Hamlin’s ACL tear in his left knee. Very different than Edwards’ broken right foot – but still, a lot of people at that time thought Edwards wouldn’t suffer from the injury. The results suggest an immediate drop in performance.

Another notable injury was Jimmie Johnson, who before the 2007 season started broke his wrist by falling off the roof of a golf cart. After the first dozen races in 2007, he had four wins and was second in points, eventually winning the title that year. I guess you can’t complain about that.

Based on such good results, Jimmie Johnson came back before the 2009 season with a gash in his left hand. He didn’t start the season nearly as strong as in 2007, but still came back to win the title. Again, no complaints here.

We also saw Jeff Gordon’s back issues come up this year, but he held strong for a third place chase finish, though you kept wondering if he could have been closer to winning the title had he not been injured.

In 2006 we saw defending champion Tony Stewart’s nasty injury cause him to miss the Chase, even though in those final ten races he had extraordinary performance.

The lesson here is if you want to get injured, do it before the season starts, so you have time to recover. Injuries that happen in the summer or later could spell doom, since there just isn’t enough time to recover. Hamlin might have a slow start to the year, but it shouldn’t affect his overall standings assuming he qualifies for the Chase.

Danica Patrick is winning the Silly Season. With news trickling out of the rest of the NASCAR world in dribs and drabs, Patrick has commanded our full attention since November. She has announced that she will race in the Nationwide Series with JR Motorsports and that she will make her debut at Auto Club Speedway on Feb. 20. No press conference has been planned for next week - as far as I know. It is still entirely possible she could upstage Christmas.

Danica Patrick is winning the Silly Season. With news trickling out of the rest of the NASCAR world in dribs and drabs, Patrick has commanded our full attention since November. She has announced that she will race in the Nationwide Series with JR Motorsports and that she will make her debut at Auto Club Speedway on Feb. 20. No press conference has been planned for next week – as far as I know. It is still entirely possible she could upstage Christmas.

So how did we get here? How did we go from Patrick being someone you kind of sort of heard was racing in some open-wheel circuit somewhere to being the 2009 off-season face of NASCAR? USA Today – which does a super job covering NASCAR – answers that question with this very nifty career-spanning Danica Patrick photo spread.

]]>http://www.allleftturns.com/danica-patrick-photo-spread/feed/1The Randomness of Restrictor-Plate Racinghttp://www.allleftturns.com/randomness-restrictor-plate-racing/
http://www.allleftturns.com/randomness-restrictor-plate-racing/#commentsWed, 18 Feb 2009 04:30:24 +0000StephenThere's really no rhyme or reason to who finishes where in a restrictor-plate race. How random is the Daytona 500? Or any other restrictor-plate race, for that matter? This kind of random: Michael Waltrip finished seventh ...

I mean, Waltrip did finish seventh, it says so right there on the results page, but, we all know Mikey can draft. Hell, if not for plate racing, Mikey’s washing dishes down to the Waffle House, right? Anyway, Daytona is some kind of random.

Kevin Harvick finishes second. Clint Bowyer finishes fourth. Between them, the two Richard Childress Racing drivers might have turned three good laps in practice all week. Hell, Harvick turned the eighth-best lap in the final practice, but that’s the best either he or Bowyer did. Most of the rest of the time, he and Bowyer (and, for that matter, Jeff Burton and Casey Mears, the other RCR drivers) spent quality practice time with the Kirk Shelmerdines of the world.

No, practice doesn’t mean much — you never know what teams are working on or if a driver ran his laps solo, in the draft or what. Still, Harvick started 32nd, Bowyer 22nd. And, according to NASCAR’s lap summary report, both drivers spent a good portion of Sunday’s race fairly deep in the pack. Again, that could just be indicative of a play-it-safe strategy and not proof that their cars sucked.

But, there it is: the RCR cars weren’t very good in practice, they weren’t so hot in qualifying and neither guy brought a great deal of attention to himself on race day. And yet, at the end of it all, there they were, second and fourth.